‘The X-Files’ Premiere Was A Confusing Mess, But It Gets Better

Watching The X-Files is a daunting task. There are 202 episodes over nine seasons, two movies, and a dense, paranoid backstory that even Rust Cohle would reject as too insane for his Crazy Wall. The beginning of “My Struggle,” the first of six X-Files “special events,” does a good job of wrapping up the entire series in a handful of minutes. That’s about the only nice thing I can say about it.

In its original run, The X-Files‘ mythology episodes were always the show’s worst. They were typically the hardest to make sense of, particularly in the later seasons, when the impenetrable conspiracies betrayed the simple elegance of the show’s central premise: someone who believes works with someone who doesn’t. It’s why, whenever you see a list of 10 X-Files You Must See, the selections are always “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” “Home,” and “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” monster-of-the-week episodes that blend horror with comedy. (Except “Home.” There is nothing funny about “Home.”)

It’s safe to say “My Struggle” won’t land on anyone’s future must-watch list. The problems pop up immediately. Mulder and Scully’s reunion should feel huge; it’s the first time we, the viewers, have seen them together since 2002, apart from the second movie, 2008’s X-Files: I Want to Believe. Instead, they speak on the phone to discuss Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale), a blowhard, Alex Jones-like TV personality who knows government secrets that go all the way to the top. Like, how 9/11 was an inside job and aliens are real, or something.

Nine minutes in, and the returned show is already hard to parse. It only gets more confusing once Sveta (Annett Mahendru, who’s great on The Americans but lackluster here), a woman who claims she’s been abducted by aliens on multiple occasions, gets introduced. Mulder — who’s presented as an unshaven hermit, until he’s not — takes an immediate interest in her, or so the script claims. David Duchovny’s performance here is comically sleepy; he doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening and doesn’t care enough to bother trying to understand it. (Gillian Anderson, the spark who lights the show’s fire, is as fantastic as ever.)

The episode’s big reveal, the development that’s supposed to change everything, is that alien technology is being used on humans, but there’s no “holy sh*t” wallop because it’s lost in all the needless exposition, choppy editing, and general lack of cohesion. It’s like the bees all over again.

Other familiar faces pop up along the way: Mitch Pileggi is still in need of a stiff drink as FBI Asst. Dir. Walter Skinner, the Cigarette Smoking Man continues to puff down cancer-sticks through a hole in his throat, and there are aliens, a whole lot of aliens, that don’t add anything to the mystery of the show that we didn’t already know. And that’s the thing: This episode doesn’t know who it’s for. It’s too complicated to appeal to X-Files newcomers, but too “been there, done that” for hardcore fans. Creator Chris Carter has dumped every paranoid thought he’s had in the past decade into a one-episode pot, and the result is an unappealing, tasteless stew.

If it sounds like I’m down on the episode, I am, but that’s because I know the show is capable of so much more. Tomorrow night’s episode, “Founder’s Mutation,” is a slight improvement, but stick around for episode three, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” which will air on February 1st. It’s as fantastically funny as it sounds, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s familiar with the clever brilliance of writer Darin Morgan. The truth is out there, and so are better episodes of The X-Files.

Yeah, he McHale’s character believed he was right. It was the government letting him do his thing because he was pitching the whole aliens thing. Once he hit upon the correct conspiracy the government shut him down and I assume he went into hiding.

Haven’t read Kurp’s review yet (i will) as i just want to get my rambling thoughts down as quick as possible.

Considering that the AV Club’s review of this episode tempered my expectations going in, I didn’t think it was bad at all. A little anticlimactic considering it’s a big reunion and only 6 episodes, but it felt very much like a premier you’d get in the middle of it’s original run – for good and bad. There wasn’t nearly as much existential bullshit voiceover monologues as I feared, and the last few minutes really pumped me up for the rest of the season to come. I wouldn’t call this premier anything close to “crap”. If you liked X Files in it’s original run, there is no reason not to enjoy this episode IMO

I was disappointed but I thought I might be. The cabal (blacklist), NWO type story lines are starting to get tedious for me. And then the Snowden, wiki leaks, 9/11 BS only made it more tiresome. Anyway I’m a huge fan of the show so I’ll watch the series regardless. Also an emphatic NO regarding the main story line regarding Aliens were the worst episodes. The beauty of x-files is the separate story lines.

And I believe the “oh crap” twist isn’t that alien technology is being used ON humans, it’s that it’s being used BY humans ON humans, and that all the other stuff from the series was just human-on-human, with no aliens actually involved. However, the fact that it’s hard to parse that out shows exactly how convoluted and messy the episode was. But hey, its purpose was to get them back on the X-Files, and it did, so whatev.

Not too mention this stupid hollyweird story line where the first things humans would do when they see a real life alien (not from the south of the border) is to shoot it lacks any sort of rationale logic.

This review reads like alot of the vocal feedback I heard about Star Wars from friends (not online). We loved this so much. How could this not live up to our collective obsession? Easy. It wasn’t made for us. This X-Files series was not made for 35 year old die hard fans who remember each episode and who can in great detail lay out all the missteps and inconsistencies of 202 friggen episodes. It’s a reboot disguised as a return; made simpler and faster for new viewers (Gotham fans (no offense, it’s a good show)) who can give a shit after 2 episodes. As someone who saw the original 202 episodes as they aired, I loved it. How the hell can you slog into the present with all that baggage? You just can’t. So it’s stripped down caricatures at first to get the juice flowing. It introduced a wonderfully scary idea (spoiler) that it isn’t little green guys flying around abducting cows, it’s red shirt military guys straight out of a video game. We’re scarier than aliens. Not bad. I watched the episode twice and the worst thing about it is my desire to think of this as episode 203 that was 20 years in the making.

I didn’t love it or hate it. The only thing that really bothered me was that David Duchovny seemed like he forgot how to act. I did like the humans using the tech on humans though. kinda neat take on it considering what the show used to be about.

The original X-Files was great because it gave you just enough to keep you going and muddied the waters enough to make nothing concrete. The “truth” felt like it was open to your personal interpretation, and then just when you thought you had it figured out they hit you with a new direction.

Then here comes this episode and it’s like “Here’s the answers – nine seasons worth of conjecture is shit and here’s the nonsense narrative we’re 100% confident is the truth”

Can someone explain why theX-Files were reopened – why the FBI hired Mukder and Scully back at the end? It went from a story about McHale’s character bringing Mulder and Scully together then suddenly they are working for the FBI again. Why?